In these technologically advanced times, increasing numbers of pharmaceutical companies have discovered that the use of 3D animation is one of the most cost effective methods of relaying their message to the public and other parties of interest or necessity. Through the use of medical animation, the pharmaceutical company can create a viewer-friendly, well-defined article of communication that visually describes their drug products. This makes the plethora of hurdles that a pharmaceutical company must contend with easier to glide over, including the standards and requirements imposed by clinical trials, the Food and Drug Administration and other legal entities.

By the use of 3D animation to explain a pharmaceutical method of action (MOA), the composition of the message is not constrained or restricted by the visual limitations of the human body. Complex effects of pharmaceuticals can be presented via visual media using 3D animated graphics that can be easily understood by the prospective patients and parties to the drug approval, application and promotion process.

As an example of how 3D animation techniques can be used with regard to pharmaceuticals, one need only consider a drug which is administered intravenously. Without the use of computer graphics, visual conception of the drug use could be limited to the drug’s external application. With the use of 3D animation, the effects of the drug as it travels through the body and the bloodstream can be depicted. This includes even the simulation of cellular and molecular interactions.

However, another example would be the effect of a vaccine application. Once the target area of the vaccine has been reached by the drug, the release and replication of the desired proteins can be easily shown. Simulation of the effects toward illness prevention that accompany application of the drug can also be readily accomplished.

3D animation has the benefit of being an easily comprehended intermediary between pharmaceutical companies and their prospective drug distributors, prescribing physicians and patients, describing how a new drug will potentially work within the human body. In addition, the creation of a 3D animated presentation can greatly assist the pharmaceutical company in more promptly obtaining the necessary FDA approval when a new drug is intended to be introduced or when an existing drug is improved upon.

Animation technology has provided pharmaceutical companies with a means for relaying the complex effects of drug actions and interactions without getting overly technical. Representations of inner-body complexities such as protein receptor binding, beta blocking, replication and cellular/molecular reactions can be readily illustrated. The extent to which a pharmaceutical company can utilize 3D animation techniques to describe the effects of its products is only limited by the imagination and not the restrictions of the more archaic photographing and imaging techniques.